In Your Face!

Greetings, Brother Zachary! Thank you for all the kudos (blush, blush). The Apostle Paul in Acts 17 sought to give an apologetic for God's demands on the human race to the Athenians using their own religious worldview to do it. Likewise, I attempted to communicate to the popculture postmodern Buddhist without using Bible references excessively, but his own Buddhism to show that he isn't living up to the commands of his own teacher, Siddartha.

A new book by Ravi Zacharias explores a fictional conversation between Christ and Buddha that sounds interesting. I haven't picked it up, but if anyone has read it, a good review of it would be welcome.

Regarding possible multiple sources for the Pentateuch: the possibility of multiple sources for the Torah does not parallel the claim of Christ's literal resurrection, and hence its a false comparison. The resurrection event is claimed as literal in all of the New Testament books (independent multiple attestation). Likewise, according to the Apostle Paul, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the "sine qua non" of Christian theology. If it didn't happen, then the entire Christian message is a hoax (I Corinthians 15:17). This is precisely why John Dominic Crossen's claim to be a "Christian" is nonsense, since he is a naturalist who denies the historic claim of the resurrection.

However, the authorship of the Torah doesn't have this central place. If the Torah weren't *entirely* from the hand of Moses, would this be a discredit to the entire Bible's credibility? Is this really a thread, if unwoven, would unravel the entire Christian faith? This is what I would consider "too far." The Bible doesn't make this claim of the Torah's authorship of central importance, nor does the Bible even claim that Moses handwrote everything in it. Dr. John Goldingay of Fuller Theological Seminary, although he holds to the JEPD theory, does maintain that much of Deuteronomy indeed goes back to Moses for very good reasons, including the citation from Jesus in John 5:46, "For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?" Specifically, in Deuteronomy 18:18 "I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." Frequently, this is cited among Christians as Messianic prophecy, that the future "prophet" will be One who is greater than Moses. Even David did not fulfill this role.

rev 1/5/02

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